MINNEHAHA-HIAWATHA COMMUNITY WORKS

Hennepin County Housing, Community Works and Transit

From 2008-2010, HKGi led a multi-disciplined consulting team through a process to develop a Strategic Investment Framework for the Minnehaha-Hiawatha corridor in Minneapolis. As the foundation for Hennepin County's Minnehaha-Hiawatha Community Works initiative, the Framework for this three-mile urban corridor with the metro's first LRT line focuses on improving neighborhood livability and prioritizing public and private investments in infrastructure and community development. The project included multi-jurisdictional collaboration among Hennepin County (the client), City of Minneapolis, Metro Transit, Minnesota Department of Transportation and the neighborhoods along the corridor. An extensive public engagement process was used to collect input on the corridor utilizing a full array of public information gathering techniques, such as in-person surveys at community events, public forums, on-line discussion forums, focus group meetings and discussions at established neighborhood meetings. Issues were categorized into key topic areas used to structure further community dialogue identifying possible solutions and desired outcomes. This effort resulted in the Minnehaha-Hiawatha Community Works Framework document comprised of four components:

The Framework established a vision of creating a "diagonal ladder" of three connected livable neighborhood districts along the Minnehaha-Hiawatha diagonal corridor. Moving forward, the Minnehaha-Hiawatha corridor will benefit from having a consolidated list of improvement projects with multi-jurisdictional support and coordination.